And Into the Fire
by Estoma
Summary: "Faces hidden in hands, fists through walls, eyes shut in pain or glazed in shock, the victors listened as Snow prepared to wipe his hands clean and begin again with a fresh, white slate." The victors react to the Quarter Quell announcement. Cover image by April Little.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note: The victors react to the Quarter Quell announcement. Don't hesitate to suggest a victor for future chapters. Written using prompts from Caesar's Palace forum, please feel welcome to come and join the fun. **

**Prompt: White**

For thirty seconds the districts stood still. Nobody blinked. They barely took a breath. If they had been rendered into the ghostly waxworks that once stood in a forgotten hall in a forgotten country, there would hardly be a change. Yet, life filled the citizens of Panem for the blood coursed through their veins as if they ran for their lives. Adrenaline flooded as if they might have to. And, white-knuckled, their hold upon their frightened children screamed that they wanted this life to continue a little longer.

Silence reigned. Not like the cold emptiness found inside tombs and beneath the roots of the mountains, but a watchful, waiting silence; a crowd awaiting an execution. In District 2, the picks stopped striking sparks from rock as hard as the people themselves. The incessant rattle of metal wheels on metal tracks ceased and in the lull, the citizens of District 6 could hear the blood pounding in their ears and feared they were going mad. Nobody sang in 11's orchards. And in the hush, the card-bearer's steps were like thunder. Far out to sea, well past where the waves broke and dashed themselves against the shore like a thousand white riders and their steeds, the sailors of District 4 told stories. They named Poseidon the Earth Shaker, for his very stride sent shockwaves through the bedrock and tossed the ocean like water in a pail. But now the stories fell short. In District 12's pit mines and the open quarries of 1 and 2, dynamite sent slabs of rock arching toward the sky, but it was nothing like the sound of the child's light footsteps as he ascended the stage before the nation.

The Capitol child carried the carved wooden box in both hands, tucked close to his chest, as a mother would first hold her child. He couldn't have known that to the districts, the box would be as heavy as lead. Until now, speculation was rife. Those alive at the time remembered the gut-wrenching pain of writing down the name of a child like a death sentence, or seeing four, not two, young faces upon the stage. Even the career districts were nervous; at the 50th games, they lost just as many tributes as any. Nobody spoke now. Even children too young to understand were cradled on laps and their whimpers stilled. Some felt they would scream if the silence, thick and suffocating as tar, were not broken. Yet, unbroken, there was still a chance that the yellowed envelope held a blessing in disguise; perhaps, each mother and father thought, perhaps it will not harm my own child, perhaps they will escape. It was surprising the brittle paper did not crumble under the weight of five million gazes.

He had the audacity to wear a crisp, white suit; Snow. Blending into his meticulous beard, the effect was spectre-like. The fingers that reached for the envelope at the front of the chest were barely more than skin stretched over bone yet he was a world away from the emaciated children who worked the factories in District 8.

A chill wind sprung up behind him, bringing sharp flakes of snow pale like ash, clawing at the sleeves of his jacket and unfurling the banners around the stage. Tauntingly, they snapped and danced, imprinted with the images of so many victors in their prime. There was Maggie Dock as she was when she won; eighteen years old, hair swirling to her naked waist like Lady Godiva from a long distant past. Haymitch Abernathy grimly challenged the crowds, his face without the harsh lines that he had helped carve himself. But most of them showed the star-crossed lovers.

The pair of children from 12 stood at each corner of the square, and holograms turned the flat sides of buildings into solid canvases to capture them as they had been upon entering the arena, at their interviews, and less truthful scenes, too, manipulated with an artist's imagination. Someone had airbrushed a coy smile onto Katniss' face, and lust into Peeta's blue eyes as they graced the side of Snow's mansion, naked and twenty feet tall.

Snow could have whispered and all would have heard his words pounding like waves upon a cliff. Yet, though the stone would eventually give way to the power of the waves, it would not crumble instantly as most of Panem did. They fell to the floor, or to the arms of loved ones if they were lucky. As they clutched their children with relief, a twisted darkness stirred deep within Panem's mothers and fathers for their children were spared this year. It was easy to forget that the victors had once been children who clung just as tightly to their parents and fell asleep with tears slick on their cheeks. Faces hidden in hands, fists through walls, eyes shut in pain or glazed in shock, the victors listened as Snow prepared to wipe his hands clean and begin again with a fresh, white slate.

"Now we honour our third Quarter Quell, on the 75th Anniversary. As a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from the existing pool of victors."


	2. Brutus

**Author's Note: Warning for coarse language.**

**Prompt: Ephemeral**

**Brutus**

Brutus grew up in a small home hard up at the foot of the Kellies on the eastern edge of Marble. When his father was dragged off to prison after a bar fight that left two men to bleed out in the snow, he and his mother were turned out of the house. They ended up in the bottom half of a rundown place owned by a friend of his mother. She never said how she knew him. Brutus learnt many things that year. In the alley behind his house, he found out the best way to twist a boy's arm up behind his back until his joints threatened to crack. He explored the narrow, switchback trails and found the road that led up into the Kellies and knew if he followed it for long enough, he's reach the chain-link fence between District 2 and the Capitol's territory. Creeping upstairs at night, soft footed for a big lad, he looked through a door left ajar and learnt why his mother's friend let them stay there without paying rent. Brutus also learnt that second chances were about as rare as a lucky symmetrical snowflake, and if you saw one, you better grab it tight before it slipped away on the wind.

At fourteen, Brutus knew he was too old to hold his mother's hand. She'd be more likely to give him a clip under the ear, anyway. But it didn't stop him wishing she would reach out and twine her fingers in his rather than gazing coyly at the headmaster. The headmaster's desk was a mass of polished wood; an unmovable, unrelenting altar and the man with his hands resting on the edge had the air of a judge. Brutus thought the room more a cell than a court.

"You're sayin' he could go to jail?" his mother asked.

"He's done a man's crime."

"I didn't mean to-" Brutus started.

"Fuck that!" A uniformed peacekeeper strode forward and crashed his fist down on the desk. Even the headmaster flinched. "They took that kid to the hospital but it's not looking good. When you break three vertebrae, you mean it."

"He-"

"Don't matter what he said. I don't care if he said he fucked your mother-" The man gestured to Brutus' mother, waiting in the corner of the room, and she transferred her heavy lidded gaze to his face. He spat. "You going to tell the kid's family that when they're changing his fucking diapers an' spoon feeding him the next sixty years? They're going to want someone to blame."

"Brutus," the headmaster said more rationally, "with your father's history it already looks bad. I've put in a call, but don't have much hope."

At fourteen, Brutus clenched his jaw until pain radiated up in sharp spikes through his skull. He tried not to cry. The holding cells behind the peacekeepers' barracks were cold this time of year and his breath made twisting shapes in the air. He wasn't sure what he was waiting for, and his frosty breath hung question marks before his eyes. When he looked down at his shoes instead, Brutus felt a sick flush mixed with the thrill of kicking the kid once he was on the ground. Brutus couldn't even remember what had started the fight, now. It didn't take much for kids who grew up in the alleys under the shadow of the eastern mountain range. He thought he should feel guilty, but the guilt would not come; Brutus was only frightened of going to prison with men like his father.

When the door opened, he angrily dashed tears from his face and his breath hitched.

"Give me a minute with him." Everyone knew Taro Lockyer's harsh bark of command. Though the victor's hair had turned steel grey and hard lines were carved into his face, he still had the same bearing of the young soldier who won the first games and went on to found District 2's career program. "They told me what happened. Why'd you do it?"

"He, he hit me, sir," Brutus muttered.

"So you kicked him nearly to death?" Taro sighed. "I'm not saying it's right, but I can see some of my boys doing the same if they got their blood up. How old are you?"

"Fourteen, sir."

"You're lucky, boy. We can find a spot to train you for the games. At least it'll be better than being locked up."

"Thank-"

"It's going to be hard," Taro continued. "You'll be with boys who've had five years of training already. You're going to have to work hard, and if you don't you're out and right back here. Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Least we won't have to teach you the killer instinct."

Brutus was eighteen when he got what he considered to be his next second chance. It came three heartbeats away from death as the leering boy from District 10 hefted a rock that would have crushed Brutus' skull. Muscles tensing, the boy drew himself back to swing but the shifting gravel betrayed him and his foot slid over the stone like the sound of a tomb opening to gaping darkness. The rock shattered Brutus' elbow, not his consciousness, and he leapt upon the chance before his attacker could right himself. The same chunk of stone caved in District 10's face.

When the announcement came, all across Panem, Brutus was the only victor to laugh. It was a sound entirely without mirth. The curses and the exclamations of the other victors, the trainers, the boys and girls in the academy's meeting hall, faded as Brutus roared with laughter. Twenty-seven years ago, Brutus had been poised with the words on his lips, ready to volunteer. For the first time in his life, he was going to be something of a hero when he took the place of a child who would surely die in the arena. And then the escort called his name out.

When his laughter died away, Brutus saw the others watching him. He nodded his head, as if to an invisible adversary, "Thanks for this, Snow, you fucker," and at the Reaping, he lunged forward to volunteer.


	3. Female Morphling

**Author's Note: Warning for drug abuse. An entry for the 'Something Different, Something Strange' challenge at Caesar's Palace. Feel free to join in the fun at the forum. **

**Prompt: Yellow**

**Female Morphling **

By the soft glow of the television screen, Deena slipped a tourniquet around her wasted bicep and pulled it tight with her teeth. Her other hand already reached for a syringe and she twisted it in her fingers as skilfully as one of the market's pickpockets might make a coin dance across his knuckles. After thirty years, her veins were collapsed and broken but she made do. She drew 60mg and shot it in. At the last moment she averted her eyes; after thirty years, Deena still didn't like the sight of blood. In her desert of an arena, she'd had enough for a lifetime. No practised career, her two kills were messy and desperate; heart beating like a caged animal, a kitchen knife gripped hard, and her fingers inside someone's chest cavity when she slipped and put her hand through their broken ribcage.

Before her high took her, she threw away the syringe. The first time Deena used anything harder than the herbal joints you could find in the market, she left the glass vial on the floor. It wasn't until she came down that she felt the glass stuck an inch into the sole of her foot and retraced her bloody, wandering footsteps.

Impatiently, she waited for the morpling to do its job. This was always the worst part. Her thoughts raced rampant. Last year's victors flashed into her mind, and then Haymitch, hunched over a bottle, Johanna plotting silently in the woods, and Finnick writing down all he had learnt from his latest client. The rebellions in 11 and 5, too. It was a relief when her thoughts grew distant, and Deena turned her back on the hope of change.

Weaving steps took her to the hall cupboard. As was her custom, she closed her eyes before choosing a colour. In the dark, she swayed back and forth gently as if she were caught in a current. She was. Her hand reached out slowly, uncertainly, as if she did not have full control of it. It was something entirely outside herself, and she smiled when she saw the colour it chose. Maybe it was just the fog of morpling, but it felt right.

Heavy in her hand, even the can of paint could not anchor her to reality. Deena wandered a lazy circuit of the house; upstairs, through three empty bedrooms, past three sunken baths and a room full of books that she would never have the concentration to read again. There were no photos on the walls; their place was taken by vivid sunbursts, swirls, arcs of colour. The mirrors too had been shattered into silvery shards or painted over; Deena didn't need a reminder of what thirty years of using had done to her face. Her hair had lost its lustre and her skin greyed. The veins in her eyes were broken, but cataracts covered most of them, anyway.

On the screen, a slow montage of the victors played. It had already passed her by the time she glanced up. Then Deena painted. While the television showed Dirk Lockyer, crazed and kneeling on his ally's chest to gouge out his bright blue eyes, Deena slapped a layer of paint over the kitchen door. Thick and oily, it dripped through her fingers just as blood and ropes of intestines slid through Haymitch's. Her hand moved across the wood like something underwater; fluid, graceful. She watched it as one would observe children at play. As Peeta smeared a bloodied handprint on a rock by the streambed, she added the finishing touches.

Deena woke with sharp tears in her eyes and she tore the skin of her cheek from the dried puddle of paint on the floor. Unsteady and nauseous, she padded to the kitchen and stopped with a smile, her stinging cheek forgotten. Yellow stars, suns, swirls and starbursts covered the door and the frame. Interspersed between them was the mountainous skyline of District 2 that she had learnt in school as a child, a curving wave, upon the point of breaking, that she remembered from District 4 on her victory tour, and a spreading fruit tree, surely, from 11. There were others, less clear, but Deena thought she knew what they were. Then, humbled, she took a pad of paper from by the phone and forced her trembling hand. She wrote a note to Haymitch, to smuggle out on one of the trains going to 12; her resolution hardened overnight like the paint of her kitchen door. Deena thought it was more than just the haze of morpling that drove her to paint Panem in the colour of hope and new chances.


	4. Male Morphling

**Author's Note: Warning for drug use. An entry for the 'Broke, But Not Broken' contest at Caesar's Palace.**

**Prompt: Purple**

**Male Morphling**

He woke with a headache and heartache. Sunrise was still an hour away and there was only a faint trace of light on the horizon. All the world was filled with the same uniform glow; it was neither light, nor dark; it just was. While the moon had surrendered keep of the skies, but the sun had not yet risen, it was a time for grim thoughts and shadow-dark things to creep in at the seams before the light came to burn them away.

Paint flaked and peeled from his fingers like old dry skin and Jans followed the trail of drips across the carpet and into the long hallway. There were no photos to break up the uniformity of the blank canvas; it looked more like the corridor in a hospital than a home. There was nothing but white paint and a dead child.

Jans did not fumble for a knife as some of his fellow victors would. He didn't ready his fists to defend himself. Flailing back, his eyes closed, his back hit the bannister and he stood trapped while the girl watched him. Slowly, as his heart slowed to normal, Jans dared to open his eyes and regard the ghost. Little Lara Sen, his district partner, gazed at him with wide eyes and a bloody smile across her neck. The rough brushstrokes around her face managed to capture the stark fear with which her life had ended, or perhaps Jans just imagined it; he'd been too busy running for his life through the knife-sharp grass.

A foot away, Miriam Tanner brought her arm up to shield her face from the club that shattered her skull. Jans didn't have to image that; he saw her arm snapped and her face caved in like an egg. It was at the bloodbath. Her killer went on to reach the finale.

Footsteps dragging, the old victor put his hand on the bannister and forced himself up another step. Each dead tribute, each of the children who perished in his godforsaken pit of an arena seemed to beckon and point onwards. Jans breathed raggedly, and even the morphine that still lingered in his blood could do little to assuage his racing heart. Worst was his first and last kill. Jans hadn't painted Savar's eyes in bright green, but he remembered well how they filled with pain that leaked down his cheeks.

Jans was late to the finale. By the time he got there with palms laced with cuts from the steel-grass, there was little for him to do. Savar, from 4, was inches from death and his ally from 2 had already bled away. Jans almost became the first victor to win without a single kill, but he couldn't stand the wet spluttering breaths of the boy as he tried to breathe through lungs filled with blood. Wielding someone else's dropped sword, Jans claimed someone else's victory.

Beyond the last tribute, there was an empty gap between the wall and the door to his bedroom. Footsteps soft under the eyes of the dead tributes, Jans crept downstairs to fetch a can of paint. For a moment, the television caught his attention and he hesitated. Caesar and Claudius still discussed the Quarter Quell announcement, and as he watched, a chart slid onto screen; a poll: _Who do you think can be crowned again?_ At the top of the chart there were well known names, like Odair, Lockyer, Everdeen, Mason, but unerringly Jans' eye was drawn downwards. Two from the bottom, plain black type spelled 'Janson Traker'.

When he was high and drifting, Jans rendered twenty three dead tributes in vivid colour but in the morning light, he only pried the lid off one can. The purple was so dark it was almost black. A thousand and more years ago, the same shade was used to adorn the gilded tombs of emperors and kings, and he didn't deserve it. It didn't take long to finish his own portrait at the head of a parade of dead children, in the archaic colour of mourning. Jans had to smile at the irony.


End file.
